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August is usually a quiet news month…everyone’s supposed to be on vacation. This year is clearly the exception to the rule. Along with the latest drama in Syria (totally out of scope for me), it seems the confluence of the 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, DC., the US Labor Day holiday, and the impending ramp up of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly known as Obamacare has created a Petri dish of dissatisfied people and companies – especially in Retail. And in this Petri dish some retailers stand out by bucking a difficult trend.

Let’s take a look at a laundry list of activities.

On August 29, fast food workers in more than fifty cities around the US participated in strikes and demonstrations over their low wages. They are requesting $15 an hour in wages and the right to unionize. These work actions have been going on for more than a month, but are now receiving national attention.

Some background: Employee turnover in fast food restaurants is stunningly high – well over 200% a year. This trumps by a wide margin employee turnover in traditional retail operations, which can run as high as 106% in specialty retail, while dropping lower in supermarkets and department stores.

Walmart became collateral damage to this strike as a major publication published wage comparisons between Costco on the high end, Walmart in the middle, and Wendy’s at the far low end of the continuum. Walmart took objection to the comparison. In fact, a Corporate Communications Director sent out an email suggesting that comparing Costco to Walmart is like comparing Michael Jordan to Malcolm Gladwell. An odd analogy, but why quibble? It wasn’t all about Walmart in the first place.

On a more positive labor note, last week Walmart announced it was expanding health care benefits to same sex and opposite sex Domestic Partners across the US, in anticipation of rapidly changing laws in individual states.

Then there’s the ACA and its ripples across the industry. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the world of retail tech, labor scheduling systems give retailers the capability to automatically cap the number of hours that individuals or groups of hourly workers are scheduled. This feature is necessary, given the variety of state and municipal laws governing the amount of hours and times of day teenagers (a large portion of the store labor pool) are allowed to work, potential union work rules and other factors that may be retailer-specific. Technology just makes these corporate decisions easier to implement.

Retailers are using this same technology to ensure they are “safe” from accidental full-timers. Because the ACA mandates employers offer health care benefits to employees who work 30 hours or more, some retailers are setting that automated cap to 29 hours in anticipation of the provision kicking in.

For example, fast-fashion retailer announced it was slashing worker hours and health benefits in mid-August, even though the chain denied the change had anything to do with ACA. For a more detailed explanation of how the ACA is playing out industry-wide, see Forbes contributor Laura Heller’s excellent article from June 26, 2013.

The retail industry’s largest trade association, the National Retail Federation is lobbying hard to delay and ultimately change the 30 hour mandate, as it essentially re-defines a full-time worker from 40 to 30 hours and arguably will cost retailers money in health care costs. The mandate has indeed been delayed, but it is expected to eventually roll out.

It’s important to note that not all retailers are pulling the “short the hours” lever. On August 29 CEO Howard Schultz declared his company’s intention to leave their scheduling and benefits offers intact. We expect others, like Whole Foods Market and the Container Store to do the same.

If I burrow through the noise, I actually see some good news. If employees are emboldened enough to strike for higher wages, it likely means they have more employment choices. Perhaps the resurging housing market has ended the “Well, we’re lucky to have any job at all” syndrome. I’m sure there are those who will argue “No…the strikes are an act of total desperation,” but I don’t see it that way. I’m seeing “help wanted” ads in more store windows than I have in years. And in Miami, where I live, housing starts are way up. People are working. The days when we could get service providers to come to our houses the same day we call are behind us.

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the health care fight. Obamacare is indeed the law of the land, but companies will find ways to mitigate its impact. Our national lack of appetite for a single payer system has inextricably linked business and healthcare together. Whether we like it or not, American business and workers alike are going to have to find a way to live with it.